Annexinema at the Falmouth Convention
The Poly, Falmouth, 22nd May 2010

Annexinema presented an evening screening of short films held in Falmouth's much loved, but currently closed cinema, The Poly. We set out to unearth documentary, experimental, and archival film, items of interest relating to or made in Cornwall, or relating to the notion of the ‘field trip’.

Programme

TOBIAS SCHMUCKING 30 MILES NORTH OF EDMONTON - JULY 16TH, 1969
Germany / 2003 / super 8/mini DV / colour / sound / 7'00
While Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are preparing for their journey to the moon, somewhere, 30 miles north of Edmonton, a solitary caravan is drifting through time.
ROSE LOWDER VOILIERS ET COQUELICOTS (Sailboats and poppies)
France / 2001 / 16mm / colour / silent / 2'40
The boats sail out of the Vieux port in Marseilles to be amongst the poppy fields.

ANNA SADLER JOURNEYING WITHIN
UK / 2010 / Mini DV / colour / sound / 4'30
A film and audio recording developed through visiting and revisiting a Cornish tin mine. A body explores its relationship with space and light through lack of both.

BEN RIVERS THE COMING RACE
UK / 2006 / 16mm / b+w / sound / 5'00
A hand processed film in which thousands of people climb a rocky mountain terrain. The destination and purpose of their ascension remains unclear. A vague, mysterious and unsettling pilgrimage fraught with unknown intentions. The title ‘The Coming Race' is after a Victorian novel by E.G.E. Bulwer-Lytton, about a race of people who live under a mountain.

SIMON RAVEN PLOUGH
UK / 2010 / HD video / colour / sound / 2'30
The artist drags a satellite dish through the coming light to work, presumably.
ROB GAWTHROP COASTAL CALLS
UK / 1982 / 16mm / colour / sound / 12'00
'The film is made up of four 100ft rolls/takes of slow pans of a beach and its surrounding landscape with focus and exposure in constant change. The sound is that of space (sea, wind) alternating with that of a wind instrument (Shawm). Only at specific instances do focus and exposure match to give an image that is readable in illusionistic terms, so that any attempt to 'place' oneself is subverted by the constant perceptual shift applied to the image' – Michael Maziere, Undercut
JEAN PAINLEVE LES AMOURS DE LA PIEUVRE (The love life of an octopus)
France / 1967 / 35mm / colour / sound / 13'00
Operating under the credo "Science is fiction," Painlevé lived his life as a field trip, forging his own unique cinematic path. From an essay written in 1935: "Wading around in water up to your ankles or navel, day and night, in all kinds of weather, even in areas where one is sure to find nothing, digging about everywhere for algae or octopus, getting hypnotised by a sinister pond where everything seems to promise marvels although nothing lives there. This is the ecstasy of any addict."

HUMPHREY JENNINGS FAREWELL TOPSAILS
UK / 1937 / 35mm / colour / sound / 8'00
One of the very first colour documentaries, and a paean to the last of the topsail schooners transporting China clay from Cornwall to London.

WILLIAM RABAN BREATH
UK / 1974 / 16mm / colour / sound / 15'00
A tape recorder is placed near Hay Tor (Dartmoor) and left to record whilst three camera operators walk from a distance towards the recorder. Two of them were given a whistles of different pitches, whilst the third person had no whistle. First camera was instructed to film for the duration of a breath, whilst blowing his whistle as a synchronizing signal for the other two. At the end of the first whistle, the second camera was instructed to film in the same manner. The third camera filled the time space between the second whistle and the first whistle. The filming ended just after all three cameras converged on the tape recorder, and when film had run out of all three cameras. The original and uncut soundtrack was used to score the cutting and reassembly of the picture.

KAYLA PARKER PROJECT
UK / 1997 / super 8/beta SP / colour / sound / 1'20
A series of experiments with light, time and place, Project is made up of hundreds of photos taken during field trips to sites of ancient Celtic holed stones in Kernow, taken using constructed devices and naturally occurring pinhole phenomena.
EMILY WILCZEK WALK (IN PROGRESS)
UK / 2007 / super 8/mini DV / b+w / sound / 2'20
Walk (in progress) documents four people on a walk in the French countryside, filmed on out-of-date black and white filmstock with the audio captured on MiniDisc. Emily relinquishes control of the camera, suggesting to the others that they film. The sound and image are edited in sync, with periods of black when the camera isn't running. Depending on the proximity of the camera operator to "the filmmaker" the mechanised whirr of the camera may be audible.
STAN BRAKHAGE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
USA / 1981 / 16mm / colour / silent / 2'30
A collage composed entirely of mountain zone vegetation. As the title suggests it is an homage to (but also argument with) Hieronymous Bosch.
ROBERT CAUBLE ALICE IN WONDERLAND OR WHO IS GUY DEBORD?
USA / 2009 / video / colour / sound / 23'00
Alice, unhappy with her prim, proper existence in Victorian England, travels through time into an age that allegorically resembles our own. There, she encounters elitist tea-partiers, rapping flowers, and a philosopher cat, before she is consumed by an assaulting music video. Her only hope for understanding this foreign world of spectacle is to somehow find Guy Debord. - R.C